Jean-Marie Straub (French: [stʁob]; born 8 January 1933, Metz, France) and Danièle Huillet (pronounced [ɥijɛ]; 1 May 1936, Paris – 9 October 2006, Cholet) were a duo of filmmakers who made two dozen films between 1963 and 2006. Their films are noted for their rigorous, intellectually stimulating style and radical, communist politics. Though both were French, they worked mostly in Germany and Italy. From the Clouds to the Resistance (1979)[1] and Sicilia! (1999)[1] are among the duo's best regarded works.

Contents

Straub met Huillet as a student in 1954. Straub was involved in the Parisian cinephile community at the time. He was friends with Francois Truffaut and contributed to his publication Cahiers du Cinéma, although Truffaut refused to publish Straub's more inflammatory writings.[2] He worked as an assistant to the film director Jacques Rivette on the 1956 film A Fool's Mate.[3] The pair later emigrated to Germany so that Straub could avoid military service in Algeria. In 1963, they made Machorka-Muff, an 18-minute short based on a Heinrich Böll story and their first collaboration.[4] Their next film, the 55-minute Not Reconciled, was also a Böll adaptation.

They did not make a full-length feature until 1968's Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, after which they made films at a fairly even rate, completing a feature every 2–3 years. In 1968, they also made a short film starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his theatre troupe called The Bridegroom, the Actress and the Pimp. In the mid 1970s, they began producing films in Italy. Increasingly, they began splitting their time between Germany and Italy, as well as frequently collaborating with French and British producers.

Straub and Huillet lived together for most of their lives. They had no children. Huillet died of cancer in Cholet on 9 October 2006, aged 70.[4]

Due to his more extroverted nature, Jean-Marie Straub served as the public face of the couple: this has contributed to the widespread assumption that Huillet's role in their filmmaking process was secondary.[citation needed] In reality, the two split their work equally, with Straub responsible for mise en scène, Huillet controlling much of the production design and editing process, and the two being equally responsible for the pre-production, texts and rehearsals. This method can be seen in Pedro Costa's documentary Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?, filmed during the editing of Sicilia!, one of their last features.[5]